Apr 13, 2017

The U.S. military dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday just days after a Green Beret was killed fighting ISIS there, a U.S. defense official confirmed to Fox News.

The GBU-43B, a 21,000-pound conventional bomb, was dropped on an ISIS tunnel complex in Nangarhar Province.

The MAOB — Massive Ordinance Air Blast — is also known as the “Mother Of All bombs.” It was first tested in 2003, but hadn’t been used before Thursday.

“As ISIS’ losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defense,” Gen. John Nicholson, Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement. “This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against [ISIS].”

For comparison, each Tomahawk cruise missile launched at Syria last week was 1,000-pounds each.

BACK IN 2003 – THE FLASHY BOMB MADE ITS DEBUT: In a flashy debut for its biggest non-nuclear bomb, the Air Force on Tuesday dropped a 21,000-pound behemoth onto a test range in Florida, hoping the test would rattle nerves in Iraq as well.